Getting There About the Carousel History Restoration INDOriginal Paint INDScenery Panels INDVolunteers INDWood Repair Getting Involved About the Band Organ About America's Carousels News Photos See photos of all 18 scenery panels	Recreating Scenery Panels... The carousel features 18 scenery panels on the rounding boards, or the upper rim of the carousel. When some of the original panels were destroyed by fire in 1939, the paintings were hastily replaced by rather crudely executed drawings. Although the drawings were poorly done, they seem to have represented the original subjects; they are quite similar to subjects used on other Philadelphia Toboggan Company carousels of the same era. In the 1950s, the rough replacement drawings were painted over with a red-and-white scroll design, which remained in place until 1990. After painstaking work to uncover the underlying drawings, OFC commissioned an artist to recreate the scenes in the style of PTC painter Max Soltmann. Volunteers from the Twin Cities Decorative Artists Guild and Northland Decorative Painters painted the scenes directly on the metal rounding boards. The volunteers also stenciled a floral pattern inside the rounding boards and stenciled hundreds of feet of pattern along the upper structure (the long timbers known as sweeps and spreaders) of the carousel. The work was done while the carousel was disassembled for its move from the Minnesota State Fair to Town Square Park in St. Paul. Above right, volunteers reassemble the carousel at Town Square. Note the floral design flanking each painting. After further research, the flowers were replaced by the serpentine design seen at the top and in the photo of the carousel at night.
This site is maintained by Our Fair Carousel, Inc., not-for-profit owner and operator of Cafesjian's Carousel, 1245 Midway Parkway, St. Paul, Minnesota 55103